Softube Present A New Software Synth - Heartbeat

At Musikmesse, Softube are very busy with a number of announcements. The first is a software drum synth Heartbeat due to be released in Spring 2015.

Heartbeat - The Synthesis Engine

While Heartbeat draws inspiration from the best analog drum synths from the 1980s, it does not emulate any existing drum machine. The sound mostly originates from Softube's own modeled analog synthesis, which has been augmented with carefully selected waveforms.

The core of Heartbeat consists of the eight instrument channels. You will find two different bass drum channels, which can be as punchy and deep as you want them, but are also perfectly capable of producing snappy and hard hitting woody textures. The two dedicated snare drum channels have six parameters each which allows you to achieve anything from edgy rimshots, soft and whispery snare rolls to machine-like claps.

The percussion channels are identical and can be used to model anything from 80s style synthetic toms to cowbells and noise drops. And just like the other channels, the hihat and cymbal channels offer flexible synthesis engines—tweak to your heart's desire!

Heartbeat - The Effects

In order to make Heartbeat your one stop shop for beat programming, Softie have added a fully featured effects section. It includes slightly adapted versions of their model of Valley People Dyna-mite and one of their top sellers of all time, the TSAR-1 Reverb. The Dyna-mite is a dynamic shaping Swiss army knife with a serious attitude. Limiting, compression, gating, side chained ducking and TSAR-1 is simply a gorgeous plug-in reverb.

The all new Filter Echo is a filtered delay effect with adjustable Cut Off and Resonance parameters. And finally, the output saturation can go from juicy to gritty and is not taken from any existing Softube product.

Each of the eight channels has a dedicated mixer channel with controls for volume, pan, ping-pong (auto panning), EQ (adapted specifically for each instrument) and send levels to the reverb and delay effects.

Heartbeat - A Mind Of Its Own

Heartbeat is not only about sound, it's also about inspiration and interaction. This is where the innovative Auto Layer Machine comes in. The Auto Layer Machine has four channels that can each be used to layer sounds or let the output from any of the eight instruments trigger a chain of events. This can be used to create new sound textures or create automatic fill patterns in up to four steps.

If things still get too predictable, move the Chaos sliders to the right—these add an element of randomness for each trigger, ranging from subtle variations to massive trigger-riot mayhem!

Flexible global velocity parameter knobs for volume, pitch, attack and decay can make Heartbeat responsive to velocity changes. Time Gate shortens the overall decay to create a stuttery and stiff machine sound.

No iLok USB dongle required

A hardware USB iLok dongle is optional for the copy protection of Heartbeat. Heartbeat can also be used with iLok's new machine based license.